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Locate Weakness
School divination; Level inquisitor 3, magus 3, ranger 2, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3
Casting time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a pickled predator's eye)
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 minute/level
You can sense your foes' weak points, granting you greater damage with critical hits. Whenever you score a critical hit, roll the attack's damage dice (but not extra or precision damage dice) twice and take the highest result.
I am trying to gauge how powerful is this spell, and I am uncertain on how it work:
- you reroll all your damage dice at the same time and take the highest result as the damage you do?(i.e. a typical magus roll 2d6 from his scimitar critical, get a 6 and a 8 and take the 8)
or
- your reroll every dice separately and keep the highest dice of each pair?
(i.e. a typical magus roll the first d6 from his scimitar critical, get a 2 and a 5 and take the 5, then he roll the second d6, get a 4 and a 3 and keel the 4, for a total damage of 9)
The first interpretation seem fairly weak as, as the number of dice increase, you tend to get a number near the average result. The math is fairly complicated but I doubt it will add more than a couple of hit point of damage to your critics.
The second seem acceptable for your weapon damage but it become too good when you land a shocking grasp critical.
Any idea of what it the intended mechanic?
I believe it is your first interpretation.
It states rolling twice, and taking the highest result. The result, as I see it, is the combination of a set of weapon dice, otherwise it should specify 'the highest results among the dice'.
As you mention yourself, the magus might be problematic with the second interpretation, and it entails quite a lot of math.
At 10 minutes/level and at level 1, I might cast that spell one day.
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I believe it is your first interpretation.
It states rolling twice, and taking the highest result. The result, as I see it, is the combination of a set of weapon dice, otherwise it should specify 'the highest results among the dice'.
As you mention yourself, the magus might be problematic with the second interpretation, and it entails quite a lot of math.
With a range of personal the magus is the only class that can be interested in that spell (unless you make a permanent magic item of it, and that would be a big No, No in my book). To make it worthwhile you need a character that get a lot of critics and whose hid die is relevant for the critic damage.
If the spell make you reroll all the dices a the same time a scimitar wielding character probably would get something like 1 extra hp of damage/round. Weak for a 3rd level spell with a duration of minutes.
The sequence would be:
- rolling and confirming a critical: 30% at best with a high threat weapon with the keen property or improved critical:
- rolling the dices twice and getting a higher result with the second roll.
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If my math is right rolling each pair of d6 separately will get you a average result for the d6 of 4.47, so an average of 8.94 with 2d6.
Rolling 2d6 together and taking the best result of each set of dices will net you an average of 7.49.
Assuming you have a 30% chance of getting a threat and that 2/3 of the threats are confirmed (not granted when you get iterative attacks and/or use spell combat) you have a 20% chance of getting the extra damage with each attack.
So an average of 0.39 extra hp of damage if you roll each dice pair separately, 0.1 if you roll all the damage at once.
An average of 1.94 extra damage with your shocking grasp at level 5+ (an average of 9.74 extra hp of damage with the SG that get the critical, but you get that only for 1 spell out of 5) rolling separately and I don't even want to try to calculate the average with the other method, but it will be really low.
So with iterative attacks you will get an average of 1 extra DPS with the more favorable interpretation of the spell. Very weak for a 3rd level spell.
While the spell is anything but strong, I would be very opposed to rolling them pairwise, and choosing the highest of each.
As an intensified shocking grasp is to be expected, that would require us to wait while the magus roll 22 pairs of dice and choosing the highest of the two, adding the results together in the end.
I don't think the right way to fix a weak spell, is to let it clutter up the game to be a bit stronger.
An faster solution would be roll 2*x drop x lowest, but that makes it a bit stronger.
4d6 drop lowest two has an average of 9.34. I can't quite give you the numbers for 20d6 drop 10, or 10d6 drop 5 at the moment, but more dice, should give a higher average per die.
To get the math going a bit more for rolling all dice, and dropping the lowest of them.
For a shocking grasp the 10d6 (on a crit) increases from 35 to 49.3.
An intensified shocking grasp your average damage on a crit is similarly increasing by around 30.
That solution might be more manageable timewise. Powerwise it might actually make the spell useful, despite its relatively short duration.
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With a bit of organization there is no need to wait for a guy to roll 20 or more times.
I remember a guy using a mech with 8 medium lasers in battletech. So 8 attacks rolled with 2d6. He brought 16 dices of 8 different colors, with 2 of them of the same color and rolled them all at once.
Seeing his results was easy and fast, you only had to check each pair of dices of the same color.
You can easily do the same here. 10 pairs of dices, keep only the highest one. sum up the dices.
That said, the spell is awfully weak regardless of what interpretation you use.
That said, the spell is awfully weak regardless of what interpretation you use.
No doubt, it isn't really worth casting for a 1/min per level spell.
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I'd been thinking of making it one of the mainstay spells of an Arcane Archer (whose magical background is that of a Diviner, so there's that much more incentive to use that spell, since he gets a free divination spell at every spell level).
It's obvious that it doesn't affect damage from spells, but the question that I'm still not certain I'm seeing a clearly worded answer to so far is: In the event of (in my most salient case) a critical hit with a longbow, 1d8 becomes 3d8. Additional magical properties of the weapon and precision damage are plainly irrelevant. Does this spell allow me to reroll *1* of those 3 dice, or *all 3*?
Hello? Clarification, please?
I would rule that 'extra dice' is sneak attack or flaming weapon. Base damage doubled by critical would be affected.
edited for a mistake.